Before I answer your question about why God's people should not go to the movies, let me make a couple of general comments to your statements.
First, I commend you for wanting to give your teenagers a reason for their faith. This is very important. As they grow older, they don't need a mere list of dos and don'ts; they need to learn to think biblically for themselves, to apply the Scriptures to their daily lives. They need to learn that the Bible is very practical and that it speaks to absolutely every situation in life. I grew up in church but I didn't know this. I thought the Bible was just a bunch of old stories that had almost nothing to do with today. I had no idea that it was a Living Book! Of course, I was not saved then; I didn't get saved until I was 23 and had scarred my life deeply with sin. I can't blame my foolishness and rebellion on anyone else, but oh, that the church of my childhood had made the Bible more practical!
Second, it is not enough to avoid going to movie theaters. The great moral danger today is not the only movie theater but the videocassette, the DVD, the video game, and the Internet. It is what we watch in our own homes or in the homes of our friends and neighbors.
Third, we must resist the teenager concept, understanding that it doesn’t come from the Bible but from rock & roll in the 1950s. There was a “baby boom” in America following World War II. Whereas at the end of the war, there were about 5.6 million teens in U.S. high schools, by the time Elvis blasted on the scene in 1956 the number had almost tripled to 13 million (David Halberstam, The Fifties, p. 473). There was a corresponding increase in personal wealth and leisure. Between 1950 and 1960, per capita income increased from $1,500 to $2,788. Teens suddenly had free time and money, and a new music came along, preaching, “Do you own thing; have your own life; you aren’t an old foggy; you can be a cool dude, a rolling stone; throw off the shackles; you aren’t under anyone’s thumb.” The newly invented ultra portable 45rpm record and the transistor radio enabled them to have this new and exciting music wherever they went. Radios were well entrenched in automobiles by 1956, so that the new “teen” class could tool around in their automobiles and be cool and listen to rock & roll. Alan Freed, Dewey “Daddy-O” Phillips, and many other rock disc jockeys used the radio to help create a new teenage culture with its own music, language, and moral code. “In this new subculture of rock and roll the important figures of authority were no longer mayors or parents; they were disc jockeys, who reaffirmed the right to youthful independence and guided teenagers to their new rock heroes. THE YOUNG FORMED THEIR OWN COMMUNITY. FOR THE FIRST TIME IN AMERICAN LIFE THEY WERE BECOMING A SEPARATE, DEFINED PART OF THE CULTURE” (The Fifties, p. 474).
Television also helped create the teenager. By 1956 there were 37 million TV sets in America. This powerful new medium had a great influence in the spread of rock and roll. Elvis Presley’s appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1956 attracted 54 million viewers, which was a whopping 83% of the television audience. Dick Clark’s American Bandstand was inaugurated in 1957 and was watched by millions of teens. “Every day nationwide, teenagers rushed home from school to watch their favorite singers, and learn new rock & roll dance steps. ... As viewers watched them day after day, they got to know the dancers’ names; THEY COPIED THEIR CLOTHING AND HAIRSTYLES; THEY MIMICKED THEIR ‘COOL’ BEHAVIOR...” (Richard Aquila, That Old Time Rock & Roll, p. 10). The Beatles appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in December 1963 was seen by more than 73 million people. Not only did Sullivan promote Elvis Presley and the Beatles, but also Buddy Holly, the Rolling Stones, Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Searchers, Dave Clark Five, and many others. (For more about the history and influence and dangers of rock & roll see our 473-page book Rock Music vs. the God of the Bible, available from Way of Life Literature.)
The “cool teenager” was invented in the 1950s as a clever marketing tool. It is a concept that appeals to the innate rebellion and pride of youth and was a grand device of the devil.
Christian families and churches that cater to the world’s concept of “the teenager” are foolish and are not following the Bible. They are bowing to popular culture, and that is idolatry. God will not accept it. His Word is very clear in this matter, that we are not to be “conformed to this world” (Rom. 12:2) and that “whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4).
Fourth, God has obligated parents, not young people, to set the standards for the home. All too often Christian parents allow their standards to be lowered by their teenagers, so that it is the children who are setting the moral standards! That is backwards and it results in confusion and apostasy. The Bible says nothing about teenagers. In the eyes of God, teenagers are still children, still under parental authority. God praised Abraham because he would “command” his children. “For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him” (Gen. 18:19). God hasn’t changed since Abraham’s day, even if society has. God’s Word says, “Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord” (Col. 3:20). God doesn’t make an exception for teenagers. Until that young person “leaves father and mother,” goes off on his own, pays his own bills, makes his own way in life, and is responsible for his own decisions, he is under his parents’ authority.
We have witnessed the confusion and backsliding that results when parents turn the helm of the home over to their teenagers. Some close friends have done this with disastrous consequences. I think of one family that had high scriptural standards for their home until the children reached their teenage years, then it was as if someone flipped a switch and suddenly the teens were in charge. They set the standards for dress and entertainment and dating and music. Instead of the mom showing the girls how to be godly Christian women, the girls taught the mom how to be a teen. Instead of the mom instructing her daughters to dress modestly, the attractive teenage daughters taught the mom to dress like the world. Instead of the mom teaching the girls to appreciate wholesome music, the girls taught the mom to listen to rock. Instead of the dad teaching the sons to be busy serving the Lord, to be Christian men, the sons taught the dad to be a teen, to lavish his fleeting hours upon fun and games, with activities that have no eternal value but that are “cool.” As a result some of the children became moral shipwrecks and the parents eventually lived in two different countries. One of the girls had two children out of wedlock. One of the sons stiffened his neck against God and went completely into the world. The oldest daughter’s wedding to a charismatic was a moral disgrace. The bride was indecently dressed to the extreme and the crowd danced to hard rock & roll.
Many Christian parents are afraid to hold the scriptural line for their children as they get older, because they are afraid of “losing them”; but if they don’t hold the line they have lost them already.
Fifth, to maintain strong moral standards for your children, you must be able to have control of their lives. If they are in a secular school or a worldly Christian school, it is very possible that you will lose the battle. The same is true for the church you attend. I would challenge you to make sure that you are in a morally strong church that will back you up with godly standards. The matter is so crucial it is well worth moving to another state if necessary. If you are in the typical church today (including many independent Baptist or fundamentalist ones) your kids are surrounded by young people who are deeply compromised with the world, whose chief goal in life is to have fun, who think a shallow devotional and a quick prayer sanctifies every sort of carnal behaviour and redeems the complete waste of countless precious hours in this fleeting life. They are just as sports crazy as the world, just as fashion conscious, just as ignorant of sacrificial Christian living and service. In fact, if you are in the typical larger church, you might very well have a youth pastor that encourages worldly living (covered with a thin veneer of superficial Christianity, of course, to salve the conscience). The average church's youth department replaces secular things with Christian alternatives that imitate and are only a half step behind the world; secular sports are replaced with Christian sports, secular rock with Christian rock, secular dating with Christian dating, R-rated movies with PG-13 movies, secular tattoos with Christian. If you are in such a church, even if it is not quite as extreme as that which I have described, it will be almost impossible for you to maintain strong standards of separation from the world for your teenagers, because your efforts will be undermined by the church and by their church friends.
Sixth, when you give up something like television and movies, you need to replace it with something godly and wholesome. A vacuum is quickly filled. We are not only to cast off the works of darkness but also to put on the armor of light (Rom. 13:12). Instead of sitting around the television in the evenings, read some good books out loud. Everyone enjoys hearing a book read out loud, even teenagers. Start with something like Pilgrim's Progress or an exciting missionary biography. Or gather the family around to listen to good preaching sermons. Some are available on the internet both for download and for sale. The following site is one example: (Beginning in about April 2004, Way of Life Literature plans to publish a series called Life Changing Sermons.) You will be amazed at how quickly the family can learn to enjoy life without the television and in a much more spiritually and morally healthy manner.
Seventh, and above all, do everything possible to be close to your children, to let them know that you love them dearly, to win their hearts with your affection, to know what they are thinking and to have an open channel of communication with them. If there is any breach between you or your husband and the children, spare no effort, spare no money, spare no repentance of sin, spare no tears, spare no amount of prayer, spare no amount of time, spare no amount of fasting, to heal that breach. Nothing is more important than winning your children to Christ and seeing them serve Him wholeheartedly and unreservedly. If your church is somewhat worldly and it is the best one in your area and you are not in a position to relocate, and if your Christian school is far from ideal but you are not in a position to home school, you can still succeed spiritually with the children if you have a close and fruitful walk with Christ in your own life and if you are close to the children and hold the key to their hearts.
Our four children are grown and are serving the Lord today and two are missionaries, so I am in a position to speak from experience, not only from what we did right but also what we did wrong! One of our sons struggled with the Lord's will for awhile, and I have no doubt that my failures as a father had negative consequences in his life. I praise the Lord for His great mercy and grace. Without that, no parent would ever be successful.
We did not have a television in our home for the first 14 or 15 years of our marriage. Then we decided to get one just to watch a few "good shows" and some carefully selected movies on video, mostly the old black and white ones. I believe my wife and I controlled the television as carefully as anyone ever has. The children were not allowed to watch shows by themselves. We hand picked every program and every video. If we wanted to watch a television program, we pre-recorded it and fast forwarded through the commercials. For the most part we did not allow any movie with a rating higher than G, and that really limits one's viewing! Even so, we found ourselves gradually lowering our standards, letting a couple of PG movies slip in because those particular ones "weren't much worse than G." Also, the kids would be home alone at times and there were occasions when we found that they had watched things that they should not have. Television is a slippery slope at best, and it gets worse every year. Several years ago we disconnected the television from the antenna, though we continued to watch a few old movies such as "The Shop Around the Corner" and "Sergeant York" or old TV programs such as Andy Griffith. And for the last few years we have not had a television in our home even for watching old movies.
Candidly, the only regret that I have about television in our home when the children were growing up is that we allowed ourselves to have one at all.
Now to the matter of why we should not watch unwholesome television programs and movies:
SCRIPTURE PASSAGES THAT FORBID WATCHING THE VAST MAJORITY OF HOLLYWOOD MOVIES AND TELEVISION PROGRAMS
The following Scripture passages teach me not to attend the modern movie theater or watch most modern Hollywood movies on video or DVD or the vast majority of television programming (including, and perhaps especially, the commercials!). While we cannot make a law that Christians can never watch any television program or any movie, it is also clear that Christian liberty is not the liberty to disobey the Bible. If the child of God can watch some program or movie without disobeying the Scriptures and with a clear conscience before God, that is between him and the Lord. But the following Scriptures have a direct application to this issue and are a loud warning to those who have ears to hear.
1. "I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me" (Psalm 101:3).
This verse single-handedly forbids the child of God to watch the vast majority of the movies and television programs that are made today. Consider just a few of the wicked things that you or your children will see:
* The breaking of all of God's commandments
* Open and flaunted immorality
* Casual drinking and drug usage
* Drunkenness portrayed as something funny and innocent
* Immodest and sexually alluring dress
* Sexually enticing dancing
* Violence and mayhem
* Casual dating (Parents, do you want your children to date after the fashion portrayed in most movies and television programs?)
* Mockery of the things of God
* Pagan religions depicted as truth
* Occultism, paganism, and New Age error (even in cartoons and in a large number of Disney movies)
2. "I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?" (Job 31:1)
This verse is similar to the one in Psalm 101:3, but it warns more specifically about looking upon women to lust after them. The Lord Jesus Christ warned, "But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart" (Matt. 5:28). These verses are solemn warnings to men and boys NOT to watch Hollywood movies, whether in the theater or at home. In public, most men will not stare at a woman very long because he doesn't want to be seen doing that, but when he is watching a movie, he can stare as long as he desires at an indecently clad female, even if his wife is sitting by his side. Twenty years ago I asked a pastor friend, "Why do you think so many pastors are falling to sexual sins?" I have never forgotten his simple reply: "Television."
3. "But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints; neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks. For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them." (Ephesians 5:3-7).